I know I saw some Apollo stuff at school, but I am pretty sure the lunar step was not the only time they got the TV out. I also am pretty sure I watched some of the lunar walk at home, and what might have happened is that I saw the first part at school and the rest at home, having been allowed to go home early. Even staying at school all afternoon, I might have caught the tail end at home. Or did they allow us to go home when there was some uncertainty, I think, as to when they would leave the module? I have an idea that someone complained about how long it was taking for them to get out, but was that my Mum or a nun? (I'm leaning towards Mum.)
There are two people from my class that year that I could probably track down. One was a best friend that I lost all contact with from the age of perhaps 16 or 17. He went to a different high school and (so I was told by the other person I could probably contact, as I met her again 10 or 15 years ago) had become a bit of a wannabe, or actual, Lothario as a teenager. People change, obviously; but I was pretty much the opposite, so it may have a case of a hormonally induced loss of friendship even if I had seen him much as a teenager.
So, this post has gone off a bit more personal than intended!
Anyway, I am pleased to see how much attention the anniversary did eventually attract. A pity Armstrong himself didn't live to see it.
Modern technology should address the memory uncertainties I discuss here. Any kid watching today would probably have at least some selfies showing him or her watching it. That's at least one advantage of the way technology has evolved that is perhaps under-appreciated.
Update: I was somewhat surprised to hear a man on ABC News saying that he was in Britain, working on a satellite project, at the time of the moon walk, and despite his great interest, was asleep at the time of the moon walk because it happened there in the "middle of the night" (yes, I checked - started just before 4 am) and he thinks the BBC has closed for the night and didn't carry any live telecast anyway! I had sort of forgotten about TV ending overnight and, even on this occasion, apparently refusing to break that rule. I guess that would not have seemed odd at that time if it had happened similarly in Australia, but the 24 news cycle - and even 24 sport - we have all become used to now makes it seem a very antiquated world.
Update 2: going back to the topic of the fallibility of memory, I remember being particularly amused by Spike Milligan, in one of his WW2 memoires, talking about a particular incident in which he couldn't remember a detail, leading him to ring his old mate who had a completely different recollection of the incident in total. Spike then joked about what this might mean for the real history behind some of the Bible, giving a comedic example. That did strike me as a good point, and that one should be cautious about recollections, be they your own or someone else's. In fact, it started to bother me that scepticism of their own memories is not very common amongst people, when psychological studies, and incidents like Milligan's, teach us that we should be.
Update: I was somewhat surprised to hear a man on ABC News saying that he was in Britain, working on a satellite project, at the time of the moon walk, and despite his great interest, was asleep at the time of the moon walk because it happened there in the "middle of the night" (yes, I checked - started just before 4 am) and he thinks the BBC has closed for the night and didn't carry any live telecast anyway! I had sort of forgotten about TV ending overnight and, even on this occasion, apparently refusing to break that rule. I guess that would not have seemed odd at that time if it had happened similarly in Australia, but the 24 news cycle - and even 24 sport - we have all become used to now makes it seem a very antiquated world.
Update 2: going back to the topic of the fallibility of memory, I remember being particularly amused by Spike Milligan, in one of his WW2 memoires, talking about a particular incident in which he couldn't remember a detail, leading him to ring his old mate who had a completely different recollection of the incident in total. Spike then joked about what this might mean for the real history behind some of the Bible, giving a comedic example. That did strike me as a good point, and that one should be cautious about recollections, be they your own or someone else's. In fact, it started to bother me that scepticism of their own memories is not very common amongst people, when psychological studies, and incidents like Milligan's, teach us that we should be.
14 comments:
wake up Steve. there will never be another Apollo again if current trends in the universities and the media and society in general continue. https://www.thenation.com/article/apollo-space-lunar-rockets-colonialism/
I am not pleased to see this attention. Its a constant humiliation to watch people lap it all up.
These misinformation campaigns always have layers to them. Going on that logic I would have to make the wager that they can travel further than they are making out. And so they continue with these Mars Rover frauds and with the Apollo scam, just to monopolise the technology they've stolen.
Everything is crumbling. Everything is still standing up only on momentum received from before World War I. Dissolving into a new dark age and age of feudalism. I want to retreat to the mountains, breed kids for seven generations, and then emerge with an army of frost giants to sort everything out.
Climate change will probably ruin Florida as a site for space launches by the end of the century anyway, Jason.
And who will bear more responsibility for that? Cashed up libertarians or woke academics?
Wake up, indeed.
Don't worry, Peter Thiel will save a space for you on his sea steading home where you can rage together about how universities ruined it all, while counting his money from Facebook and Paypal, technologies which did a hell of a lot to help the exploration of space...
"Climate change will probably ruin Florida as a site for space launches by the end of the century anyway, Jason."
Try Science Steve. It won't kill you. Have some pride. It will be so cold by the 2030's we won't be recovered by the end of the century. Have to heat all that ocean all over again. That will take time.
"I want to retreat to the mountains, breed kids for seven generations, and then emerge with an army of frost giants to sort everything out"
Dude
I hope you take more than one person with you. Otherwise that sounds like the sequel to Deliverance
I hear ya. That problem is something for the grandkids to mull over I suppose. We don't want to become racist unsightly inbreeds like the enemy. You would end up changing the leadership without improving matters. It would be hard to imagine any descendants of mine every being so appalling in the nose department. But they could come out distorted and gargoyle-like in other respects.
I watched it at the science laboratory or rather through the window.
didn't think it was a big deal then nor now.
What technological achievement does impress you, homer? Zippers?
By the way, I think I will go watch tomorrow, at the cinema, the Apollo 11 film (a documentary just made up of archival material revamped, and some re-discovered) which everyone says is remarkably good.
I agree there were significant tech advances
Technical achievements? There was nothing in it. Their L.E.M. could not so much as clear my hedge. They didn't have sufficient shielding to get through the Van Allen belts. They had no way to deal with heat or radiation. They solved none of the problems to get to the moon and back and their production values, from a hollywood point of view, were feeble even for the times.
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